


Unexpected Honours

by Britpacker



Series: Life On Earth [15]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8064928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: "Hey, Mal.  Letter for ya."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Inspired by the fantastic Diamond Jubilee celebrations we’ve been enjoying in the UK recently. We know there’s still a Royal Navy in the 2150s, and England are still playing in a World Cup, so… set thirty or so years after the mission ends.
> 
> The topic of what to call same-sex partners of Sirs and Dames has come under discussion in the papers recently. The answer offered here is the one that seems to me most probable/sensible - so of course it'll be wrong!  
> 
> 
> * * *

"Hey, Mal." Still smoothing down his shower-damp white hair, Admiral Charles Tucker III, head of Warp Engineering Research, ambled into the sunny kitchen where his husband, the head of Armaments Research, was scrambling eggs while simultaneously watching bacon grill and boiling the kettle, painfully alert despite their having a rare day off together. "Letter for ya. I didn't think anybody still bothered with these things - look, it's got a stamp on an' everything."

"I dare say you'd be grumbling about having to pay the postage charge yourself if it didn't." Eggs were deftly flicked onto a waiting plate, the bacon still spitting like an irate cobra as it followed. "Grab the milk will you, love? And it's not _that_ odd - Gran and I used to correspond with paper and pen all the time."

"Malcolm, your Granny's been gone a long time now." And since Catherine McGovern Reed's final illness, nobody to Trip's recollection had bothered to send so much as a handwritten postcard their way. "Lemme make the coffee, you open your mail."

Not without a pout Malcolm surrendered command of the kitchen units and slipped into a chair at the pine table, absently rubbing the head of Gagarin, the more affectionate of their Cavalier King Charles spaniels while Armstrong, settled under the table in the hope of a snack, merely opened a melted-chocolate eye for a moment. "Good Lord!"

Trip turned so sharply that hot liquid splashed all over his hand, his pained howl overlaying his husband's prim exclamation. "Now what did you go an' make me do that for?" he yelped, wagging his stinging hand. Malcolm snorted.

"Oh, run it under the tap and don't be such a baby," he chided, unable to drag his eyes from the top tight corner of his unexpected delivery. "I take it you didn't notice the postmark, Admiral Oblivious?"

"'t isn't my letter, Admiral Snitty. What's a postmark, anyway?"

A long finger jabbed. "That."

Trip's jaw clanged off the tiled floor. "Buckingham _Palace_?" he stammered. "But - but..."

"Precisely." He was almost disappointed there wasn't a big red wax seal to shatter with a fingernail instead of a strip of gum holding the flap down. Quickly, Malcolm scanned the contents of a single sheet of heavy, high-quality plain paper. "Bloody hell!"

Without another word he pushed the sheet across the breakfast table, his empty stomach's complaints forgotten. "Tell me I'm reading it right."

"Her Majesty's Lord Chamberlain is commanded by The Queen to enquire whether Admiral Reed would be willing to accept the honour of knighthood in the Birthday Honours List," Trip read, bright blue eyes coming out on stalks as the meaning of the words slammed home. "Sonofabitch! Wait 'til the kids hear about this! Does this mean you're gonna be _Sir_ Malcolm?"

"The correct mode of address - I think, it's a long time since anyone in our family got a gong - would be Admiral Sir Malcolm Reed, KB." 

Trip Tucker hadn't seen his husband so dazed since the time he'd been hit by a round from a Sargassi stun-gun, almost forty years before. "Got a nice ring to it," he said mildly. "You're going to accept it, yeah?"

"One doesn't say _no_ to the Queen, love." Absently Malcolm smoothed the single crease across the centre of the page. "Melissa will want to frame this. And I dare say they'll all want to come with us to the investiture."

"The what?"

"The ceremony, of course. When she taps me on the shoulder - if it goes through, obviously - with the sword. You'll be the Hon. Charles, I think; if you were a woman you'd be entitled to call yourself Lady Reed, but same-sex partners get called Honourables. And if you even _think_ of turning up in front of my sovereign lady Queen Catherine in one of those _hideous_ shirts, I will personally see to it you're an honourable without his unmentionables, understood?"

"Aw, c'mon darlin' you know I'd never do anything to embarrass you." His lunge across the table sent the precious letter fluttering to the floor. Wrapping both arms around his husband, Malcolm ignored it.

"I know that, love," he said, dropping his spinning head onto the older man's shoulder. "And I'm sorry. I'm just a bit staggered, that's all."

"You an' me both, babe." He knew Mal wasn't exaggerating when the endearment didn't earn him a busted nose. "Isn't it just typical of you Brits to still be doin' all these _Sir_ this an' _Knight of the_ that stuff now we've got ourselves a Federation Council and a planetary president an' all."

"None of which stopped Planetary President Archer receiving his Medal of Honour from the President of the United States, if I remember correctly." Permafrost edged the words as Malcolm drew back, his changeable grey-blue eyes narrowed to stormy slits. Instantly contrite, Trip held up both hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"Sorry, sorry. Just because you got different ways of doin' things to ours don't make 'em wrong, and just 'cause we're a single planet in a wider Federation doesn't mean we should abandon our different traditions. It's just..."

"Infinite diversity in infinite whatsits, my dear - as the Vulcans would probably stone me for saying." With a self-conscious laugh Malcolm smoothed his ruffled hair, touched beyond the temples now with grey. "And just like the Medal of Honour, knighthoods are _actually_ decided by the government, not the sovereign."

"But she can cross a name off the list, right? Same as the President can?"

"Since Charles the Third struck off a couple of businessmen whose chief merit was throwing money at the governing party it's been accepted that dubious names don't get as far as the Palace," Malcolm conceded. Thoughtlessly he forked up a mouthful of eggs and then retched, spitting the cold, rubberised mess into his palm instead of the nearest available sheet of paper at the last moment. "And if they do, they're discreetly removed before any fuss can be kicked up!"

"Charles the Third." Sometimes, Trip mused as the furrows in his brow deepened, he wished he kept a _Debrett's Peerage_ by his pillow instead of his latest engine schematics. "He'd be the current Queen..."

"Great great grandfather." Who needed _Debrett's_ when they had Malcolm Reed? "He wasn't everybody's cup of tea, but that stunt probably saved the whole honours system. The head of state's supposed to be above politics, but that was grandstanding of the highest order and no government's dared risk their nominees being snubbed since."

"Figures. You gonna call the kids or shall I?"

The frown that sent captains in the weapons labs diving beneath their benches unrolled over his husband's sharp-angled face. " _Neither_ of us is going to disturb Jamie's first term at the Academy; nor interrupt Melissa's studies; you know she's got her Starfleet Medical exams next week. And if you even _think_ of pulling strings to comm. the _Lord Nelson_ and over-excite that hyperactive firstborn of mine - this _is_ just a preliminary approach - you'll regret it."

"Aw, Mal! I've gotta sit on a secret like this?" 

Approaching his seventh decade Charles Tucker III could still act like a toddler on the brink of a tantrum, and after so many years of marriage Malcolm didn't hesitate to tell him so. "But _you_ know how thrilled they were when we saw the Queen drivin' to St Paul's for her silver jubilee!" the Southerner wailed.

"It hardly feels like five minutes since Captain Archer gave me the day off to watch her coronation," Malcolm marvelled. "Thirty-five years! They're a long-lived family, the Windsors; particularly the women, what with the present Queen taking after her great-great-great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth the Second. I daresay we'll be watching Queen Catherine's Golden Jubilee with grandchildren on our knees."

If he hadn't been dazed by Her Majesty's kind offer Trip knew his great big old softy of a soulmate would be pretending the prospect of grandkids still gave him the horrors. "Let's get 'em all married first. Jamie's only nineteen!"

"Going on forty-nine." Sheepish, Malcolm heaved himself upright, the sudden twinge of arthritis through his knee made obvious to the man who knew him best by the slightly pained twist to his familiar half-smile. "Where have the years gone, Trip? It seems like five minutes since I was on my first posting, and now my oldest child's off exploring the universe in my place."

"'s called life, Admiral Reed." For once it seemed Mal could ignore their dirty dishes. Mildly amused to discover how much of his darling's OCD had rubbed off onto him over the years, Trip swept them off the table and into the washer before propelling his spouse toward the living area. "Go send off your thank-you letter. C'n I at least tell Johnny? He's got a meetin' of the full council on Vulcan comin' up, and you know he hates those things."

"They should really let him stand down - he's been agitating for long enough," Malcolm remarked, conceding the favour with a brisk nod. "If only the International Council could agree a successor! Still, at least he gets to stay with T'Pol while he's there."

Trip's creased features twisted into the clownish grimace he still found unspeakably adorable. "Those two bozos should've had their heads knocked together thirty years ago," he growled. "Hell, they should be enjoyin' their old age together, not makin' small-talk over dinner once a goddamn year! When I think of all the names he called me for not makin' a move on you in the first year aboard Enterprise... go tell the Queen thank you, then I'll comm. him, okay? It'll give 'em somethin' other than the dry weather they've been havin' on Vulcan lately recently to discuss!"

"Calm yourself down over a cup of coffee first, dear; I don't want you abusing the Planetary President over an unsecured channel again." Knighthoods and correspondence with the Palace might send a man's head into the clouds, but as long as he had Admiral (soon to be the Hon) Charles Tucker III in his life, Malcolm Reed knew his feet would always remain very firmly on the ground.


End file.
